Dog-I-Y: Easy Three-Ingredient Homemade Dog Ice Cream

In Wrigley and Smash’s little corner of the world, the temperature broke 100 degrees this week. ONE HUNDRED DEGREES. If that doesn’t mark the official kick-off of summer, I don’t know what does. In an effort to keep these pups cool and happy and spoiled rotten, I whipped up some homemade doggie ice cream in not one, but three flavors! Each recipe only has three simple ingredients and is a piece of cake to make. Check them out below — and help your favorite four-legged friend through the dog-days of summer!

Strawberry Coconut Butter Dog Ice Cream

Ingredients:

32 oz. tub plain yogurt

1/2 c. pure coconut butter

1 c. fresh strawberries, washed and dried

To Make:

1. Add yogurt, strawberries, and coconut butter to a blender, blending until smooth.

2. Pour mixture into a freezer-safe container. To make individual portions, pour into ice cube trays or small food-safe containers.

3. Cover and freeze for several hours or up to a day before serving.

4. Once frozen, scoop single servings into your dog’s favorite bowl! Store leftovers in the freezer.

Makes approximately 4.5 – 5 cups.

Note: You can add more or less of any ingredient to suit your dog’s taste and/or texture preferences. Try to use pure, fresh ingredients without added sugars, salts, or weird preservatives, etc. I found the coconut butter, coconut milk, and 100 % pure (no added oils, salts, etc.) peanut butter in the health food section of my local grocery store.

And now for the other two recipes! The steps for making these flavors are the same as above.

For a more savory treat, try swapping out the fruits for bacon crumbles, shredded cheese, a bit of parsley, or add a handful of your dog’s favorite biscuits to the blender. The options are endless. Just make sure you don’t include any foods that your dog is allergic to or that are known to be toxic to canines.

Happy summer!

Update: Regarding concerns about yogurt — Plain yogurt in small amounts is perfectly safe for dogs. In large quantities, it could cause stomach upset due to the lactose and that’s something to be aware of (keep your giant tubs of yogurt out of paw’s reach, in other words). However, considering its use in these recipes, and the small treat-sized portions, the amount a dog would be consuming here is negligible.

Capree Kimball is the Managing Editor of Dog Milk and a self-proclaimed 'crazy dog lady'. A design nerd and a gardening-obsessed optimist, Capree has a penchant for collecting tin robots and gobbling up gravy-smothered biscuits any chance she gets.

Sue Pope on 06.21.2013 at 17:11 PM

Coconut oil and butter are different: coconut butter is made from whole coconut flesh and puréed into a spreadable paste. You can usually find it in the “health foods” section of a grocery store, next to the almond butter, soy butter, etc. Hope that helps!

Oh! And if you can’t find it, you can always make your own from unsweetened, dried coconut flakes. Just blend around 4 cups of flakes in a food processor or high-powered blender for about 15-20 minutes. 🙂

krystle on 05.25.2014 at 19:49 PM

Try putting your homemade dog ice cream into a plastic tub/container , then get a big freezer bag and pop the tub/container into freezer bag , when you insert it squeeze out as much air in the freezer bag as possible before zipping, popping, clipping freezer bag to shut. Then put in freezer and when you take out of freezer for your dog. It should scoop out soft and easy, not a hard lump in sight.

Hi Sophia! You could easily swap out the coconut butter for peanut butter in a pinch — it would just change the flavor obviously. If you still wanted some coconut in it, just add some coconut flakes in addition to the peanut butter! 🙂

My 7 yr old shi-tzu is trying to get his weight down, bit begs me for I’ve cream every time I have it (I didn’t know they are lactose intolerant). Any suggestions to stay in the low calorie guide lines? Portions or specific brands?

Kat K. on 07.29.2015 at 16:23 PM

I made the strawberry recipe for my 8 lb. shih tzu Lupita, and she loved it! And actually, I tasted it and thought it was pretty darn good! I put the mixture into portable 1.18 oz. cups and the serving size was almost perfect. It makes a lot, so I gave a lot away to neighbors. Maybe my freezer is extra cold because it did freeze hard, so I ran the cup under hot water just to get the finished product out. Perhaps if I had used an ice cream maker that kept the mix moving and then served it right away it would have been creamier. Trying the blueberry next!

Sarah on 04.25.2017 at 23:41 PM

Heather on 06.29.2017 at 14:48 PM

I have tried making homemade ice cream using Greek yogurt, bananas and peanut butter. After blending all the ingredients I pour it into a plastic container meant for ice cream and put it in the freezer. The next day it is rock hard and icy…..how do I get a softer scoopable ice cream?

This is so delicious. I mean that kind of recipes, not just dog, but the human also can eat that, just like myself, really craze into ice cream almost every day. Maybe i think, to make it more tasteful, can mix with the basic dog biscuit. I mean prepare it as separate menu. Just need 3 thing also, the wheat flour, eggs and beef or chicken.

Willie on 04.26.2018 at 13:22 PM

Today I have made Coconut Blueberry Dog Ice Cream. My dog has enjoyed it much. I have recorded the recipe video but not sure how to share it with you. It was really great experience for me for the first time. Will try rest of by next 3 days. Waiting to get more such recipes from you.